Saturn Square Mars

Mars - the planet of will and self-expression
is currently squaring Saturn – the planet of karma and limitations.

This is an incredibly challenging transit that we usually only experience briefly, once a year.

However this year, because of Mars’ impending retrograde, Mars will return to make the same aspect on September 29th
... AND again on January 12th after going direct.

But for this month we’re sitting in the energy between these two first squares.
You might experience this as a sense of being held back.
That despite your most sincere efforts to move towards something of importance, you're being thwarted by circumstances outside of our control.

Sometimes this dynamic can play out internally.

Saturn’s suppression can include self-censorship - a fear or being “wrong”;
when we don’t feel qualified enough to have an opinion on something.

But when we silence our expression;
our desires and ambitions,
because we feel like we’re ‘not ready’,
or ‘it’s not the right time’,
or we’re not quite yet ‘enough’ of what exactly it is that defines that bar,
We are stifling our Mars expression.


When our Mars energy is suppressed we experience a sense of frustration, or anger.
Sometimes the expression is so stifled that we may even struggle to access the frustration, and depression can take its place.

In TCM this is often manifest as Liver Qi stagnation - a condition very common to women, as we’re often strongly discouraged from a healthy Mars expression.

I have Mars Square Saturn in my natal chart.
It’s an aspect that I’ve worked really hard to dismantle some big beliefs around.

However, this week has deeply challenged me.

Since the birth of my third, I have been slowly getting my business off the ground.
Not because I feel like I have anything ‘to prove’,
or because I feel the need to ‘do it all’,
But because I’ve come to recognise how dependent my sense of wellbeing is, on my ability to breathe life into my own creative expression.
And my children are so profoundly dependent on my wellbeing, as well as their own.

I’d committed to Live streaming a body of content across 8 days – something that ultimately requires time away from my three children.

As a sole parent this only occurs during pre-organised windows – when my ex-partner has time off work or if I have babysitting arranged.

This week all of these arrangements fell through.
My baby has been teething and catnapping both night and day,
and my older two have needed extra emotional support for various reasons.
I rode with it for a few days, but over the weekend I felt the familiar surges of deep frustration, a sense of 'unfairness', and a desire to just want give up.

But I know this territory well enough now.

I know that I need to stop straining against the walls of limitation.
I know to take pressure off myself in whatever form I can,
So I can take some time to mentally reframe.

I know that within the 3D experience of time, money and energy, my ability to move freely among the world is restricted by the needs of my three little people.

But I’ve spent long enough in the trenches of motherhood now, to know of the gifts of meeting the edges of my own limitations;

That the level of commitment and self-ownership that my children demand from me,
brings the most profound expansions in my ability to self-resource.
Expansions in my understanding of life and relating.
Expansions in my palette of expression,
and therefore the expression of my own creative potential.

So this is a month of reflecting on the ways that you perceive restriction in your life– illness, disability, ageing, circumstance, isolation, distance.

It’s a time of acknowledging and honouring these walls.

And a time to seek the avenues of expression that transcend them.

There’s a certain amount of Saturn’s grip that you can avoid through developing a mastery of time and energy.

But there’s a degree to which you can only lay your sword of ambition and certainty down in surrender -
To allow Saturn’s sharpening of its blade.